As the presidential race nears its conclusion and appears to be tightening, a narrow Mitt Romney victory in the electoral college and a narrow popular vote victory for Pres. Barack Obama (or vice versa) seems a distinct possibility, similar to what happened to Al Gore in 2000. Even if a second inversion of the popular vote occurs in just four elections, it is unlikely that constitutional reform of the electoral college will occur. In 2000 efforts to reform the electoral college were discarded quickly. And, in such a politically polarized country, one would think that either party that benefited might have little interest in pursuing reforms of an institution that awarded them the presidency.

However, such an outcome (still unlikely but within the realm of possibility) could bring greater urgency to proponents of the National Popular Vote plan, a law that has been passed in 9 states that between them account for 132 electoral votes (49% of the total required to elect a president). This would guarantee that the candidate winning the national popular vote would win the electoral college total. It works simply: states that pass the law would require their electors to vote for the candidate winning the national popular vote, regardless of the outcome in that state. The law itself doesn’t become operable until states accounting for a majority of the electoral votes pass the law.

Although the purpose of the electoral college may have been understandable in 1787, it is now an undemocratic but still-extant relic of history. In other countries, presidents are elected by national popular vote, and these countries have adopted varying methods to ensure that the elected president has some minimum threshold of support. For example, in Costa Rica a candidate must win at least 40% of the vote in a first round to stave off a second round, and in France a candidate must win a majority to avoid a run-off.

If voters in other countries can be “trusted” to elect their presidents, why can’t we in the United States?

This accident of history was meant to ensure an indirect election of the president, presumably by the most enlightened citizens of the republic, and was tilted more heavily toward the smaller states as another element of the Great (or Connecticut) Compromise. For example, the 21 smallest states and the District of Columbia combine for 95 electoral votes and account for 35.5 million residents, whereas California contains 37.2 million residents and only 55 electoral voters. Thus, while many pundits talk about the importance of California, Texas, Florida, New York, and other large states, the votes of citizens of smaller states actually count more than the votes of citizens in larger states. (See list of electoral votes by state.)

The Constitution is silent about how electors are chosen, only saying that a state’s electoral votes equaled its combined number of members of the House of Representatives and Senate and that “Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct.” Originally, electors were appointed, but as democratic voting rights began to be introduced in the 19th century, states slowly began tying their electoral votes to the will of voters. (All states but South Carolina had introduced popular voting for presidential elections by 1836—with South Carolina implementing popular voting only after the Civil War.)

Even though states may allocate their electoral votes in any manner they see fit (hence why the National Popular Vote plan is a neat end run of the Constitution), to maximize their political clout all states except Maine and Nebraska utilize what’s called the unit rule, whereby all of a state’s electoral votes are awarded to the winner of the popular vote in the state. Technically, of course, that’s not wholly accurate. Voters won’t actually elect either Barack Obama or Mitt Romney; rather, they will elect a slate of electors pledged (but not required) to cast electoral votes for either Obama or Romney. So-called faithless electors, who fail to vote for the candidate to whom they’re pledged, are rare, but it has sometimes happened. For example, in 1988 one Democratic elector voted for Lloyd Bentsen, the Democratic nominee for vice president, rather than the party’s presidential nominee, Michael Dukakis. In 2000 one Al Gore elector from Washington, D.C., abstained from casting a vote. And, even this year one elector for Mitt Romney has already resigned, saying she could not in “good conscience” vote for Romney.

As election day 2012 nears, pundits and the media are obsessed, almost to the sacrifice of the policies of the candidates, with the polls and the horse race—who’s up, who’s down, and where the contest is headed. (Of the poll trackers on the web, two of the best for political junkies are Real Clear Politics and Nate Silver’s statistically wonky 538 blog.) Of course, while the national polls are fun to debate, the American presidential election is 51 separate elections, and the overall popular vote is a relatively meaningless number. While the winner of the national popular vote usually wins the electoral college, it’s not a certainty, as Al Gore learned in 2000. In 2000 Gore carried the popular vote by more than 500,000 votes but lost the electoral college narrowly to George W. Bush. The 2000 election was not the first time this occurred—it happened in 1824, 1876, and 1888. And, 18 times since 1824 candidates have won the presidency with less than a majority of the vote.

Consequently, campaigns don’t run nationally, instead focusing their resources on so-called “battleground,” “swing,” “toss-up,” or “purple” states. In most elections, the winner of a particular state is known long beforehand. Nobody would think in 2012 that Mitt Romney had a chance in New York, California, or Vermont, for example; likewise, Barack Obama winning Alabama, West Virginia, Texas, or Utah is about as likely as the Cubs winning the World Series. The swing states, of course, do change over time. For decades, no Democrat would expect to be competitive in Florida or Virginia, but they now are firmly planted in the purple category. And, once solidly Democratic, the south (with a few exceptions) is now mostly solidly Republican.

Thus, even though billions of dollars will be spent on Campaign 2012, depending on what state you live in you’ll either be bombarded with television ads and showered with campaign visits, or you will barely even know an election is taking place.

And, fundamentally, because candidates are able to write off or take for granted many states where they’ll definitely win or definitely lose and spend no time asking for people to vote for them (except for attending fundraisers in those states to solicit donations from the very wealthy), our elections are debased. Reform along the lines of the National Popular Vote plan, while imperfect, would move the country away from the undemocratic electoral college. Although I hope that the electoral vote winner will be the same as the winner of the popular vote, thus ensuring the legitimacy of the presidency against attack from partisans of the losing party, there is a part of me that wishes that in every election there would be an inversion of the popular will and electoral votes, for it would hasten the demise of that outdated artifact of history whose time has long passed.